Mr. Speaker, the motion before us today from the member for Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey has real merit. The difficulty then, as he sits on this side of the House at this point in the debate, is the fact of asking the government to “consider the advisability”, and therein lies a little bit of a hook, “of increasing the pension accrual rate for firefighters to allow them to retire with adequate financial provisions for their retirement”.
With all due respect to my colleague who has brought forward a very fine motion here, I have said that the government should just get on with it and do the job, never mind “to consider” or to look at increasing it. I have a concern that this will go before the minister and so on, and there will be consideration, delay and stalling, and who knows when finally we will get this kind of thing in place?
Aside from that, and that could be a big one, the purpose of this motion, which is to have the government look into increasing the percentage of income firefighters are allowed to put into their pension plans under the Income Tax Act, is something that has real merit and certainly I would support it.
As has been mentioned here by others before today, members of the International Association of Fire Fighters have been lobbying for this change for a number of years. They have been in our respective offices. They have talked to the minister. Seemingly they have had assurances. Early on maybe he was not very aware of what the concerns were or they were not getting to his attention for some reason or another. Now I think it has his attention. I understand that within the last few months this has received his attention, so thankfully it is at a more advanced stage.
The Income Tax Act currently allows individuals in public safety occupations, such as firefighters, police officers, corrections officers, air traffic controllers and commercial airline pilots, to retire at age 55 without penalty. However, the IAFF is arguing that the current pension rules do not allow firefighters to put away enough money for their pensions for them to retire at age 55 with 70% of their income. The best that can be achieved is roughly 60% of income for their pensions.
Just for a moment here, in relation to our party's policies over a number of years, I want to give some asides with respect to retirement and retirement security.
I think it is important to comment on retirement security. We value retirement security as a vital element of independence. We, the Canadian Alliance Party, have been clear about that, although I know it has been torqued and twisted by others in other directions.
Without question I want it on the record today that if we as a party were in government we would honour obligations under current state run programs for retired Canadians and those close to retirement and would maintain support for low income seniors. We would also provide future retirees with a greater choice between a government managed pension plan and mandatory personal plans. We would also, and I think this is important to say, increase the foreign investment restriction for retirement investments and allow individuals a greater opportunity to save for their own retirement, giving Canadians greater control over their own affairs.
If this motion were to pass, and then there is the big if, and if the government really got serious about getting something through on this, the firefighters would still have to win the extra pension benefits through their collective bargaining benefits negotiating process. Hopefully we are all aware that they have that obstacle or hurdle to overcome at some point. Nevertheless, provincial and municipal governments should be and in fact would be consulted because the extra employer portion will have to come out of their budgets.
However, if this motion passes it opens up the door. If the government is doing more than just playing games on this, if it is actually serious about getting ahead and doing something, not just considering, not just looking, then I think our firefighters, those who are here in the gallery today and others, will have that benefit that they have been pushing hard for.
I think that many members on all sides of the House, in the different respective parties and certainly within the Canadian Alliance Party, would be supportive of that for these hardworking people who are courageous and who lay their lives on the line on behalf of Canadians on a regular basis. I, with many of my colleagues as well no doubt, am supportive of the motion for some very good reasons.